


the woods are lovely, dark and deep

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 14:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12110412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Victoria, Princess of Narnia, looks at the caged glow on its iron post, beside the thicket where the White Stag has vanished.





	the woods are lovely, dark and deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doranwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/gifts).



Victoria, Princess of Narnia, looks at the caged glow on its iron post, beside the thicket where the White Stag has vanished: it is not the work of any Dwarf, and it is older than the trees that surround it.

Her mother Susan seems entranced. "A great marvel," she says, "a tree of iron."

Edmund glances at the lantern, away, and snaps his gaze back to it. Victoria feels a chill, though it is a warm summer's day, and doesn't entirely hear her uncle's words.

Peter, High King of Narnia, whose throne Victoria does not want for _decades_ yet, says something equally indistinct to her ears, with his eyes fixed on the strange glow of the lantern: it does not flicker—it is not flame.

Lucy is enraptured. Victoria clearly hears her say, "it will not go out of my mind that if we pass this post and lantern, either we shall find strange adventures or else some great change of our fortunes."

_No,_ thinks Victoria. She looks around—cold like ice, cold like snow, and she _knows the stories_ —

Victoria's mother and aunt and uncles, the rulers of Narnia and the most beloved of the land and the greatest of her defenses, stand enspelled by this artifact.

The trees stand silent. No dryads watch. No courtiers follow closely enough; even the Horses they five rode here are outside the press of trees, too large to walk within this wood. No Animals, no animals, no one at all, not even the smallest mouse or bird to rustle the leaves.

Victoria, frozen, cannot shout her fear.

"In the name of Aslan," says Queen Susan, and without the least attention to Victoria, Narnia's Kings and Queens walk past the iron post and into the shadow cast by two trees standing close together.

A gust of warm wind: the chill vanishes. Victoria can move again, can speak again, can scream again.

She weeps.

At last her tears stop flowing; she has fallen to the ground, she must stand, and dust the twigs and leaves and dirt from her hunting attire. Appearances are everything, now. She is twelve years old, and few will consider her the adult she now must be, especially if she fails to look the part. She wonders how Queen Lucy looked the part at nine, and though she knows the stories, it's a knife to the heart to know she can no longer ask to hear them again.

She will need advisors, full adults with experience. The names of her parents' advisors flick through her mind. She will go to Tumnus first, Serenta second, and tell them this:

She will need three siblings, who must ascend the Four Thrones with her. Officially, she has none, and cousins neither. Unofficially, everyone can see how much ten-year-old Helena (daughter of Lady Kalpana, daughter of Lady Restana, permanent ambassador from Galma) resembles King Edmund. Unofficially, whenever the royal families of Narnia and Archenland meet, nine-year-old Perin (son of Rasima, handmaiden to Lady Aravis) joins the Archenlander delegation, and High King Peter spends an inordinate amount of time with the boy. Officially, Queen Susan never married Victoria's father, either. Every so often Rabadash the Peaceful sends Victoria gifts, but she knows the stories.

There's no blood between the royal family of Narnia and eleven-year-old Achieng, daughter of Lord Otieno, ambassador from Adunu, but she should rather see Achieng on Queen Susan's throne than any other person she could name. And _as_ there's no blood between them, if—later, when they are both old enough—if she and Achieng choose to be not sworn-siblings but spouses? Serenta shan't even be able to contend (as she has been contending for years) that the Narnian monarchs must marry for heirs, because Achieng wasn't always Lord Otieno's _daughter_.

Helena and Perin and Achieng will stand with her, and—she hopes—will sit with her. But for now, she is alone, echoingly alone among silent trees, beside an iron post bearing a caged glow at its top. And for now, only she knows the story of the end of High King Peter's reign.

Victoria, High Queen of Narnia, walks out of the wood.


End file.
